Obsidian Notes MCP server

This MCP server enables AI assistants like Cursor and Claude to interact with your Obsidian vault, reading from and writing to files without requiring Obsidian to be running. It provides a lightweight implementation of the Model Context Protocol specifically designed for Obsidian vaults.

Installation

To install the Obsidian MCP server:

npm install obsidian-mcp-server
npm run build

Integration with AI Assistants

Claude Desktop

To use your MCP server with Claude Desktop, add it to your Claude configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "obsidian-mcp-server/build/index.js",
        "/path/to/your/vault"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

For Cursor integration:

1. Open Cursor Settings (command + shift + J)
2. Navigate to the MCP tab
3. Add a server with this command:

node obsidian-mcp-server/build/index.js /path/to/your/vault

Available Tools

The server provides several tools for interacting with your Obsidian vault.

Read Tools

getAllFilenames

Retrieves a list of all filenames in your Obsidian vault, helping you discover what files are available.

readMultipleFiles

Retrieves the contents of specified files from your vault with these features:

• Supports exact filenames, partial filenames, or case-insensitive matches
• Each file's content is prefixed with '# File: filename' for clear identification

getOpenTodos

Finds all unchecked TODO items (lines containing '- [ ] ') in your markdown files and returns them with their file locations.

Write Tools

updateFileContent

Updates or creates files in your Obsidian vault:

• If the specified file exists, its content will be updated
• If the file doesn't exist, it will be created
• Necessary directories are automatically created

Example Interactions

You can ask your AI assistant to:

• "Create a new note for standup tomorrow describing the code changes I've made today"
• "Check my notes about project ideas"
• "Check what todos I have related to refactoring"

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "obsidian" '{"command":"node","args":["obsidian-mcp-server/build/index.js","/path/to/your/vault"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "obsidian": {
            "command": "node",
            "args": [
                "obsidian-mcp-server/build/index.js",
                "/path/to/your/vault"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "obsidian": {
            "command": "node",
            "args": [
                "obsidian-mcp-server/build/index.js",
                "/path/to/your/vault"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect